


Road to Kashmir

by Dogsled



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Finale, Sam is the Voice of Reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:50:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dogsled/pseuds/Dogsled
Summary: "If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by."It's a long road to reunion. Castiel is in Paradise. Dean, Sam and Jack set out to save Mary, but their road leads them through universes full of unimaginable things, and emotional and physical challenges can only delay their return.A WIP long fic set post Season 12.





	1. Since I've Been Loving You

" _Since I've Been Loving You, I'm about to lose my worried mind._ "

 

\-----

 

Sam Winchester hadn't known what to expect, heading back into the house that James Novak had rented on the edge of the lake. More death, certainly, to match the loss and tragedy that he had witnessed outside, and a child born to a mother already dead. Someone should have been with her, but Mary had come to the rescue of her sons, and now she was...

No.

Sam didn't have time to process that yet. 

He found Kelly lying dead, her glassy sightless eyes raised toward the ceiling. There was no blood. She looked peaceful and Sam experienced a fleeting hope that wherever she was she was beyond the reach of such pain. He had seen so much death recently that Sam felt hollowed out by it. Standing over Eileen's body, Crowley killing himself for them, watching Castiel die in front of his very eyes...

No.

Sam didn't have time to process that yet.

Quietly, channeling all the calm he could muster, Sam laid his hand over Kelly's face and closed her eyelids. She was still warm beneath his fingertips. Had it only been minutes? It felt as though the grief had doubled up on top of him, suffocating, stretching mere moments out into hours. Sam could only imagine how Dean must feel--could only imagine it and press on, startled by a noise in the next room.

No, not startled. Startled would imply that he didn't know that there was someone else in the house. But Sam had expected a baby; an infant. Even Cas - even _Lucifer_ \- had expected a newborn, not a creature capable of walking on two legs, his feet charring the floorboards. Even less likely in Sam's mind was the potential that he would find a naked young man crouched trembling in the corner of the dark nursery, with his arms wrapped around his body, his eyes reflecting that same eerie glow that had possessed Castiel so very recently.

This was the Nephilim. This was "Jack". Jack was _big_. And Jack's smile was so very disturbing, it set Sam's nerves even more on edge than they already were.

Sam couldn't help but be aware of how delicate this situation was. If Jack had been a child then there would have been time to get to know him, teach him, show him the world. Even with all the power he had Sam was sure that it would have worked out fine. But Jack had been born into a dangerous world where his two protectors - his pseudo and actual parent - were both dead. With the power available to him, being born fully formed was probably the safest way there was to stay alive.

If Sam posed a threat he was pretty sure Jack could turn him into a stain on the floor with a thought. So he raised his hands up in the universal sign of placation, lowering his shoulders just a little in order to reduce his imposing height.

Jack might be newborn but he could already walk. Sam knew enough about the supernatural by now - knew better than most - than to think the Nephilim wouldn't understand him, or guess his intentions if he meant ill. It was fortunate for him, then, that he didn't. He held Jack's gaze, still keeping his hands raised, and said softly:

"I'm Sam Winchester. I promise I'm only here to help. Let me help."

Jack didn't move or speak. For a few moments all he did was hold Sam's gaze across the room. Finally he opened his mouth, only to make a strange scratchy noise with his throat. Then - clipped but coherent - he spoke:

"I know who you are, Sam Winchester. You wanted to keep... To keep my mother alive."

"That's--" Sam paused, then nodded carefully, keeping his gaze solid through each movement his head made. "That's right. We only wanted what was best for your mom. She really loved you, Jack. She...she sacrificed her life to try to keep you safe, to keep you whole, the same as my mom did when I was a baby."

Sam's smile was hopeful. Jack still hadn't moved away from the wall, but he looked thoughtful, even despite the unsettling smirk still fixed on his face. Obviously empathy hadn't come preloaded.

"I remember her," Jack admitted, and he unpeeled slowly from his hiding place. Sam kept his eyes resolutely on Jack's face. "Mary. She was here, but she's lost now."

Sam paled. He was right. Their mother was gone. With those few simple words Jack had struck him right in the heart. They'd only just made up with their mom, told her that she could come home. Sam had been about to know the kind of family that wasn't on the road all the time, hunting for something or running from something else. At least--that was what he _hoped_ for. 

These things had a way of slipping through his fingers. That was why, like Dean, he'd more or less given up on the idea of ever being free of this life. Oh, he was proud of it too; proud of the man he'd become--but loneliness was franchised with its success. Getting even never made watching beloved friends and family dying any easier to bear, and never had that been clearer than when he’d heard the news of Eileen’s death. The lost opportunities, an absence of any future that wasn't spent with a gun or a knife in his hand--Sam would always be in mourning for those things, even if he accepted them as the cost of living the life they lived.

The truth was he'd accepted it a long time ago. Who else was going to keep the world safe from things like this? Things like Jack?

"I know," Jack said, beaming at Sam. "We should go find her."

 

\-----

 

Dean Winchester was in Hell.

He'd been to Hell before. He'd been whipped and burned and eviscerated, put back together and ripped down the middle all over again. None of that was anything to the pain he felt now. Ever since he'd suffered the indignity of having his humanity crammed back into his body by Sam one blood-filled needle at a time, he had felt it more acutely than he ever had: the fragility that loomed just beneath the surface, his dependance on having something and someone other than Sam in his life.

Dean had always known what he was. He was a brother, a father, and a mother. He had helped Sam mourn Jess, a woman that he had only met the once, and when they had lost their father Dean had stepped in once again, as he had all the times before, to pick up the slack. He'd fed him, clothed him, sold his soul for him, been Death for him-- _killed_ Death for him. Sam was strong enough now. Sam was free. Sam didn't need his brother to fight his battles for him any more.

And Dean had seen a glimmer of hope that one day soon there would be something left for him to come home to.

Cas. His mom. Family. That was what Dean lived for. Without them he was empty, purposeless and broken. He felt it more jarringly than he could stand, like he'd been ripped open again, gutted, and left completely hollow inside. He couldn't even sustain his own weight, crumbling to the ground beside Castiel, staring up at the sky not because he was praying for help but because he imagined the stars would come crashing down next. His world had been crumbled to dust in two seconds. Or three. Or hours. He didn't know. Time failed to be a constant.

When he looked back down at Castiel he was still dead. Worse: now that he was looking down Dean could see the black wings that had been scorched into the earth in each direction. He reached out into the sand, felt it burn his fingers where he touched the grains, but didn't care, scooping through them as though by disrupting the image he could undo the truth right in front of him.

"Cas."

Dean's voice was little more than a croak, and he moved his hands to Cas' shoulders next, shaking him gently, then roughly.

"Cas. C'mon, man. You can't... You can't do this to me. I need you."

But Castiel didn't stir. He didn't move. He didn't budge even as Dean lifted him off the dirt and pulled him against his chest, wringing his lifeless body in his arms. Within moments Dean was rocking, sobbing, his face buried in Cas' neck, begging him not to be dead in between his breathless sobs.

He told himself it wasn't just Cas, that it was _everything_. After everything he'd been through things had been looking up. Dean had been opening himself up to the possibility that _maybe_ , the future had something in it for him. In a moment it had been ripped away, and Dean had never known quite how much he needed it until now. Until it was gone.

He was wrecked by the time he heard Sam calling to him. His brother was standing next to a teenager wrapped in a blanket. Dean’s face was puffy, his eyes stinging and strained from the tears, and he could barely focus on the pair of them.

"Dean," Sam repeated. Who knew how many times he'd said it already, but this time he said it as he crouched down beside his brother, trying to disengage him from the angel's dead body. Sam was matter of fact about it. 

"Dean, let him go. This isn't even Cas any more. It wasn't even his body. He's gone, Dean."

But Dean was having none of it. He wrenched Cas tighter against his chest and pulled away from his brother. Sam tried again. This time he spoke more softly, trying to encourage Dean to surrender rather than force him to.

"Jack's offered to help us find our mom. Do you understand? He's going to take us to find her, you and me, but first you have to _let Cas go._ "

Dean managed wry, agonized words, looking fiercely up at Sam. "I thought you said it wasn't even Cas any more, Sam?"

Sam had the heavy duty weaponry on his side. "Does that mean you don't want to save mom?"

That wasn't true, was it? Of course Dean wanted to rescue their mother, but didn't he even get a chance to mourn? Cas was his...his best friend. Maybe more. Well, no, from now on he'd never be anything more than that. Cas was dead and that was as far as their relationship would ever go. There were only missed opportunities. Dean's heart - only so recently pieced back together - had been ripped out of his chest all over again.

This time he knew there was no coming back. This time he was done with letting people in, because it only ever guaranteed that one day he would have to watch them die.

Cas would never know how Dean felt. He would never know that he loved him too.

Because wasn't that what had ultimately gone unsaid? Cas had said it right to his face, so jarringly that those words had crept their way into Dean's dreams for weeks afterwards. Cas loved him. Dean had told Mary how he felt about her. _She_ knew. But Cas? Cas had died never knowing. He would never know--because where did angels even go when they were dead? Was there a Heaven for them or was there just emptiness; blackness; an unloved nothing?

The teenager's words snapped him out of his reverie. It was as though the kid had read his mind.

"He's in paradise. It's what he wanted."

Dean blinked blearily at Jack, twisting ever so slightly on the ground to look at him. He didn't relinquish Castiel.

"What are you talking about?"

"It's what he wanted. A world without pain and misery, anger or war. Castiel is in paradise. It's all that he's ever wanted."

Dean didn't even feel himself stagger to his feet, but a second later he was swinging a fist toward Jack's face when Sam tackled him, knocking him heavily to the ground. His brother held him down as Dean fought through bitter fury to try and get back up, roaring in anguish. Sam waited him out.

"Are you stupid? You're going to punch a Nephilim in the face? I mean. What? What did you think that was going to achieve, Dean?"

Dean wasn't done. He writhed underneath Sam, glowering up at Jack. "Bring him back! If you're so powerful then bring him back!"

"But he's in paradise," Jack repeated, confused. Dean yelled again, and kicked, and Sam reluctantly let him go knowing that the fight would go out of his brother as common sense clicked in. He couldn't fight a Nephilim hand to hand even if he wanted to.

"Besides," Jack continued unflustered. "While I could bring him back, I don't have the power to do both that and open a door to another universe. You would be condemning your mother to my father's mercy."

Dean stared, the fight gone right out of him. Son of a bitch. What kind of choice was that? Bring Cas back and cut him off from...what? The angel version of a Heaven? Or rescue their mom from certain torture at the hands of Lucifer. It wasn't a choice at all. Yet by making it Dean's hand was being forced. He had to decide--

"The door," Sam said abruptly, and Dean was jolted out of his self pity by the certainty in his brother's voice. Like it was his decision to make.

Dean climbed back to his feet so he could at least try to stare his brother down. "What the hell, Sam? Aren't we even going to discuss this?"

"What's there to discuss?" He shrugged, and looked at Jack rather than Dean. "Look. Either you trust me to make choices for us or you don't, and this one's obvious. Cas is gone, Dean. And bringing people back--when has that ever done us any good? But mom is still alive, trapped out there, and we owe it to her to try and get her back."

But Sam wasn't done yet. He looked back over his shoulder at Cas' body, now crumpled at an awkward angle from the way Dean had leapt to his feet, then fixed his gaze back on Dean once more while he delivered the killing below.

"Unless you think I should go run over another dog?"

Dean felt like his legs had been cut off at the knee. Purgatory. Sam was talking about Purgatory, and how angry Dean had been when Sam hadn't come looking for him. Now Mary was the one trapped in another dimension, and Dean had a choice: he could patch up the dog or they could go looking for their mom.

Except Cas wasn't a dog. He was family.

Dean didn't answer until he was back at Cas' side, lifting the angel in his arms, grunting as he took the dead weight against his chest. He staggered as he got up to his feet, grateful as Sam reached out to steady him. Apparently the fount of his brother’s compassion wasn’t completely spent.

"Just give me a minute," Dean told him. He barely trusted himself to keep his own voice steady.

He was surrendering to inevitability, giving up the man he loved so that they could go and rescue their long lost mother all over again. But Sam was right as much as he was very, very wrong. Cas was a Winchester, and as far as Dean was concerned he deserved at least a token effort to bring him back to life. 

Dean paid no attention to Sam and Jack, but he heard Sam explaining behind him:

"When someone we love dies we grieve them. Dean just needs... He just needs a minute to grieve. Let's just wait for him, okay?"

Jack said something else, but Dean was no longer listening. He was already halfway back to the Impala, opening the passenger side expertly with one finger and his entire left leg. Gently he lowered Cas inside, propping him shotgun carefully as though he were sleeping there, before crouching down beside him with one knee almost in the footwell.

"I know this isn't ideal. You deserve...you deserve so much better than this. God, you deserve at least to have a hunter's funeral. You've earned it."

He rubbed tears out of his eyes, determined not to fall apart again and make this any more difficult than it already was. At this point it was honestly just a relief that he wasn't catatonic.

"I don't have the words, man. If I did I'd tell you--I'd tell you how much it meant to me that you were always there when I needed you the most. And that it's...that it's okay. That I forgive you. That I..."

He looked back over at Sam and Jack, feeling the strain of the limited time they had. He didn't have time to write Cas the epitaph he deserved and he couldn't fix it. They'd gone out on a fight, and while Dean had promised that they'd make up, that wasn't the same as actually doing it. He reached up nervously and carded his fingers through Cas' dark hair.

"I'm going to come back for you and do this properly. I promise. I love you, Cas."

Dean stared, just for a moment expectant, as though he imagined Cas would just open his eyes when he told him how he felt, as if with those four words the skies would open and Chuck would come down and say "I'm sorry I screwed with your lives, let me just fix that for you." But nothing changed, and even when Dean leant up in the dark privacy of the car and pressed a kiss against Castiel's still, cold lips, he remained just as still. No Disney music started playing. Absolutely nothing was different.

Cas remained dead, and Dean's heart was still broken.

Running his hand down Cas' chest, Dean busied himself arranging the angel’s coat so it wouldn't get caught in the jamb. What he found instead was something hard and square, tucked just inside the breast pocket of Cas' shirt. Wordlessly Dean fished it out, emotion swimming over him when he realised what he held. 

It was the Zeppelin tape he'd made for Cas, and by some grim fluke it bore the wounds of his death. A triangular hole had been slammed through the plastic by the angel blade that had pierced Cas' heart, melting its way through with a fierce, angelic heat. Reverently, Dean put the tape in his own pocket before he stood back up, speaking conspiratorially to Cas as he did.

"I'm only borrowing this for the same reason I gave it to you. So I have something to remember you by. It's yours, and I'm going to give it back. I swear."

Dean felt guilty. He was taking something away from him and giving nothing back. What could he give back?

With one last look over his shoulder at his impatient brother and their new charge, Dean wriggled the silver ring his father had given him off his finger and tucked it carefully into Castiel’s ruined breast pocket.

“I’m coming back for that, you hear me? I’m coming back for you, Cas.”

Applying just enough pressure that the mechanism clicked into place, Dean reluctantly closed the passenger side door. He locked up before he returned to Sam with an armful of clothes for Jack, and as many weapons as he thought they could carry. Given what he’d seen of the universe on the other side of that door, they’d need every single blade they had with them.

 

\-----

 

The feeling of unfinished business, grief and pain, fled so quickly that Cas wondered if he had felt them at all.

There was warmth on his skin, the sun sinking into afternoon shadows over dusky mountains. The lake he stood beside, so similar and yet so different from the place where he had died, reflected in crystal the shades of colors of the sky and the surrounding hills: purples, greens, oranges, and - of course - blue. It had a dreamy, familiar quality, one which Cas couldn't quite put his finger on, but he was certain that he had been here before.

Odd, considering he didn't dream.

When Castiel looked back the way he had come, there was no portal, no archangel. A single lane road stretched away from the house. Not far from where he stood it wound underneath the shade of trees and climbed away, twisting back and forth in such a way as made it difficult to tell which path it followed. There was no question, for Cas at least, that this was the road's final destination.

But that was okay. He felt comfortable here, safe, if not... There was _something_ wrong. There was something that he was waiting for, anticipation a weight on his chest, an expectation of something - or someone - else.

Turning away from the road, Cas became aware of a small house beside the lake. It was faded, worn, but again familiar, though Castiel couldn't place it, almost as though it weren't a place that _he_ had been. But that was fine. There was a familiar feeling to it, as if the shabby wreck were a home. 

For Cas, who had been homeless for so long, the draw of it was insatiable. He climbed up onto the porch, passing a swinging love seat, opened the mosquito blind, then the door, and was immediately embraced by the scent of baking pastry, and sticky, caramelized fruit. Music was playing from somewhere inside the house. Cas recognized it at once, as though he'd heard it a thousand times before, and yet he'd never heard the song despite how familiar it felt.

When he closed his eyes, he thought for a moment that he smelled gunsmoke and engine oil, but when he opened them again the scent pulled away like something intangible. Again the feeling of expectation hit him, and as he moved through the rooms it became stronger, like he should be at the door listening for the sound of an approaching engine. Flannel shirts and denim jeans lay in a folded stack on the bed, and beside it on the bedside table were half a dozen _Busty Asian Beauty_ skin mags. Cas paid them little heed.

Dean. He was waiting for Dean.

Instinctively, he found himself moving back through the house, only stopping when he reached the front door. For a heartbeat he thought he heard gravel crunching outside and the rumble of the Impala's engine, but when he pushed open the door there was nothing there. He went right to the edge of the porch and stared expectantly in the direction of the road, but nothing moved. The wind stirred the trees, the birds sang, a bee flew past his nose on its way back to its own family. Out across the lake a gaggle of geese took off, almost running across the water before their strong wings picked up their clumsy weight and dragged them skyward.

Disappointed, Cas retreated to the porch swing, sitting down right on the edge of it. This place... It was beautiful. He felt safe here, satisfied, satiated. It was missing something, certainly, but it was almost relaxing to know what that thing was. Dean would be here soon, he knew. Dean always found him eventually. There was no rush.

 

\-----

 

" _Said I've been crying, my tears they fell like rain,  
Don't you hear, Don't you hear them falling?_ "


	2. The Rover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean, Sam and Jack find themselves in an alternate universe on their hunt for Mary, but it's not the alternate universe any of them expected. Instead, Sam and Dean are confronted by alternate versions of themselves, British hunters drawn by the Nephilim's superb angelic power. The angel Castiel is at their side, a blow to Dean, still mourning his friend's death.

" _I've been to London, seen seven wonders. I know to trip is just to fall  
I used to rock it, sometimes I'd roll it. I always knew what it was for."_

\-----

Dean expected red lightning crashing in the gray skies above their heads. He expected angelic skewers piercing the sand-beaten earth, and bodies laying in every direction. He expected Lucifer. Instead, when he and Sam stepped forward it was into pitch blackness. For a moment Dean didn't even know whether Jack was still with them, and he only knew Sam was still there because his brother elbowed him in the side.

It was musty and smelled like a thrift store changing room. When Dean moved something brushed against his face--something that felt like an animal. He batted at it, and there was a brief clatter before the creature, whatever it was, wrapped itself around him, trying to smother him to death. Dean made a quite unmanly sound of fear, afraid for his life, shoving fitfully at the creature as his feet wrapped around each other and sent him sprawling onto the ground.

Then Sam opened the closet door and Dean realized he was being assaulted by a fur coat.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed, insulted and embarrassed, shoving the coat off him as he clambered back to his feet. "Don't tell me. It's Canada again?"

"Worse."

Sam was standing a few feet away from Dean, his face lit with a grey gleam cutting in through a window. Now that Dean listened, he could hear rain pattering a steady drumbeat against the glass.

"What's worse than Canada?" Dean asked, dragging himself forward to stand in front of the glass. He squinted at the view, confused. It looked unfamiliar, mostly just gray and unpleasant. He glanced back at his brother. Right now, given his experiences of the last half hour, he wasn't exactly in the mood to play twenty-questions. Besides, this was definitely not where they'd left their mom, and Jack had a whole lot of explaining to do. " _What?_ "

"Dude it's London. You seriously can't tell?"

Dean did a double take. "What, really?"

There was nothing about the view that screamed London to him. The road below was chock full of cars, mostly white Ford vans and fat black sedans. The billboard that filled at least half of the view was pasted on the side of an ugly eight story cement-block building that would have been just at home anywhere else in the world. There was a Starbucks on the corner of the street below, a McDonalds two doors down, and a Subway next to that.

Where were the little red phone boxes and the black taxi cabs, or the little guys marching around in red uniform with giant black hats on?

"That pointy building there. The one that looks like an angel blade?" Sam pointed it out to him, patiently. "It's the tallest building in the city."

"And you know this because?" Dean asked, squinting at the unfamiliar skyscraper.

"Financial news."

"What are you watching the--no, you know what, nevermind."

To Dean's immense relief a red bus had moved into the knot of traffic below, corroborating Sam's story and allowing Dean to turn to the next problem. When he turned to Jack to admonish him, though, the kid looked positively drained. It was the first time Dean had ever seen him breaking the creepy smile routine.

Sam noticed too, but he was still a moment too late to stop Dean from addressing the Nephilim himself.

"Where are we? This isn't the Mad Max universe."

Jack shook his head. He wasn't apologetic: he probably didn't know how to be. "I've never done this before. Not intentionally. I'll try again."

Sam stepped forward just in time to catch what Dean had missed. Jack collapsed like a dead weight, and Sam caught him in his arms, flicking a glare back at his brother.

"What?” Dean asked. “It's not my fault. This was your plan."

"He just needs to rest. He's been alive for less than a half hour and he's already hopping us around between alternate universes. It's taken a lot out of him."

"So you're saying what? We're stuck here until Junior gets his mojo back?"

"That's what I said," Sam answered, narrowing his eyes at his brother. "You might as well get comfortable. Come on, Jack."

Carefully Sam half-walked-half-carried Jack down the hallway. He stepped through a doorway on the left, and Dean heard the creak of bedsprings as he put Jack down. Dean's gaze returned to the window, feeling even more lost than he had been moments before. Cas was lying dead in his car back home. His mother was out there somewhere in the multiverse with a very pissed off archangel. And he? He was standing here, in some alternate London, with absolutely no idea how to deal with any of it.

God, he needed a drink.

That was when the door was kicked in by two men wearing tweed jackets, and cardigans over their shirts.

\-----

Sam had just managed to get Jack settled in when he heard the door crack open on its hinges, slamming hard enough into the drywall that pieces of it fell loudly onto the floorboards. There were footsteps in the hallway, followed by shouting, and Sam risked a glance around the frame of the door.

What he saw made him duck back, startled.

No matter how quick he thought he'd been, his appearance hadn't been missed. "Hey. You. I saw you. Put your hands in the air and show yourself. Slowly."

So Sam did as he was told, raising his hands and stepping into the corridor. His very own doppelganger pointed a sawn off shotgun at him, squinting at his appearance in confusion.

"Shapechangers?" the doppelganger asked.

Dean's double, who looked so fierce his eyes were almost crossed, stood over his brother. Dean had already taken a rather nasty smack across the cheek, probably from the back of the .48 that his doppelganger was now holding three inches from his face.

"We're not..." Sam began, cautiously. "We're not shapeshif-- _changers_. But I promise there’s an explanation. A crazy one, sure, but it's the only one I've got."

Dean spat out blood, which seemed like it would almost be enough to make his triggerhappy double shoot his head off. Wisely his brother chose to keep his mouth shut, given the circumstances.

"I'll take a crazy explanation over none at all," the other Sam said, without lowering his weapon.

Sam took the prompting he'd been given. Still with his hands up, he took one more step out into the corridor and stopped, presenting the full width of his body. It made him a better target, and if it were him holding the gun, that would help ease his nerves.

"Okay, but I warned you it was crazy."

\-----

"We're travelers from another universe," Sam said.

Great, Dean thought. They were going to get laughed at before they got shot--and by limey versions of themselves wearing goddamn _sweater vests_ , too. Was this really what his life had come to?

Double-Dean - for ease of telling - squinted. "You mean..." 

Behind his shotgun, Double-Sam suddenly snorted out a laugh. "Like the world where the supernatural wasn't real, remember? And I was Polish. Only in this universe--"

"We're yanks," Double-Dean finished. "Brilliant."

" _Awesome_ ," Dean corrected, spitting vitriol.

"Let me guess," Sam continued, and Dean could hear the caution in his voice. "You came here because someone told you about about a surge of celestial power. Something like that?"

"That would be me."

The speaker was a woman, with black hair tousled across her shoulders and deep blue eyes. She looked a little ruffled, the collar of her tan coat rumpled, her white shirt unbuttoned down as far as the blue cardigan she was wearing underneath. A pleated black skirt, dark colored tights and sensible shoes finished the outfit.

Dean had turned his head when Sam did. The woman had stepped out of Jack's room behind his brother, and her appearance was an unmistakeable resemblance to the angel that he had just lost. So unmistakable, in fact, that before anyone else could speak, Dean was blinking stupidly at her, turning further around to get a better look. "Cas?"

"It's Cass," Double-Dean corrected. The extra emphasis on the S was unmistakeable.

"It's a Nephilim," Cass announced. Since she had appeared she barely glanced at anyone else in the hallway but Dean and his double. Something about it made Dean feel uncomfortable, knocked off kilter somehow. She stared at him the same way Cas did, and Dean only really noticed it now that the angel wasn't looking at _him_ that way, but the other version of himself. It was as though only Double-Dean existed.

Cass continued to speak, matter of factly. "It's just as I thought. We have to destroy it."

"Wait. _Wait_." Sam was on the ball, which was lucky because Dean was miles away. "He's our charge. Mine. He's _my_ responsibility. Jack's helping us to find our mother."

"What?" Now it was Double-Dean's turn to snap his gaze toward Sam as though he were speaking crazy.

"Our mom," Sam said again. "She's lost in the multiverse. I know it sounds insane but..."

"Lucifer took her," Dean said, from the ground. He still hadn't taken his eyes off Cass, and he didn't even as he clarified the situation. Dean chewed his lip, practically counting the length of the seconds that Cass spent staring at his doppelganger. She hardly took her eyes off him at all.

Double-Dean was speaking: "So you're on some sort of... Dude, Sam. What was that show called?"

"Quantum Leap?" both Sams answered at once. Disturbed out of his reverie by the two voices speaking at once, Dean looked over, frowning, then - having acknowledged that TV show trivia wasn't worth his time - looked back at Cass again.

"No. The other one," Double-Dean was saying. "With the alternate universes."

Dean knew what they were talking about, though he couldn't place the show himself. He knew it wasn't the one with Scott Bakula, though. He and Sam had caught a bunch of episodes in a row during one particularly long stretch in Bismuth. Sam had been tiny.

Wary of ending up speaking at the same time both Sams hesitated, before Double-Sam cautiously answered. "Sliders?"

"That's it. Man, I'm surprised you remember it, Sammy. You were like yea high..."

Finally, Dean had had enough.

"Sorry, can we go back to 'your Cas is a chick'?"

Cass turned to glower at him. She seemed irritated that attention had been drawn back toward her. But Dean had to get this out; the question was niggling at him. 

Double-Dean looked at him too. He seemed uncomfortable. "So what?"

"Have you two...?" Dean gestured between them.

Now his double’s irritation was blatant. He seemed to straighten on the spot. "Just because she's a woman doesn't mean we've slept together. Men and women can just be friends, you know."

Dean blinked slowly, as though it were particularly hard to open his eyes against the weight of the bullshit he was being accosted with. His doppelganger was being defensive. And Cass? She was wearing that goddamn look; the same look he saw a dozen times a day when they hung out with each other for any length of time; that same look that Cas had worn when Dean had told him he was his _brother_ a year ago, while driving off to meet his death, like...

Like she was being friendzoned.

Son of a bitch.

To their credit the Sams seemed to communicate telepathically with each other and decide that saying anything to either of their brothers would be ill advised, but Dean still caught the look that Sam gave him, with eyebrows raised high as though to say "I told you so."

"When you're done?" Cass pressed, impatiently. "The Nephilim?"

Double-Sam lowered his gun and waved his hand across to disarm his brother. While Double-Dean may have been reluctant, he lowered the weapon anyway, though he made no move to return it to...wherever it came from. Dean doubted his corduroy pants were much use at concealing weapons.

Double-Sam strode forward, edging into the bedroom that Cass had emerged from. He ducked back out a moment later, shooting a glance at his brother. "It's a kid."

"Seriously? If Cass says it's a monster, Sammy-- You know how this works. We kill monsters."

"It's a _kid_ , Dean. And he’s their ticket home, maybe even their chance to find their mom. Face it: after dealing with the American Men of Letters, do you really want another pair of cowboys hanging around?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"Besides. Would you leave mom with Lucifer?" Double-Sam had an expression on his face that Dean had seen before on his own brother's. He was thinking about the Cage.

Double-Dean noticed it too, and he waved his hand at Cass. "We'll go along with it for now. But if anything changes, anything at all..."

Dean snorted. "Alright. Calm your jets Harry Potter. We want to get out of here just as much as you want us gone, trust me."

"This is a terrible idea," Cass muttered. She glanced back into the bedroom, as though tempted to ignore her Sam and Dean and march back in there. "Perhaps the worst you've had in quite some time."

Double-Dean wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and steered her away from the door. It was at that moment that Dean sank back against the radiator beside the window, suddenly struck all over again by his loss. Cass stared at the corner of Double-Dean's jaw, her teeth catching delicately against her bottom lip, riveted by something in her Dean's face as he talked her down.

Misery swelled up hot in Dean's chest. He needed time to process this. He needed a whole lot less crazy in his life, and mostly he needed...

"They sell beer here, right?" he asked suddenly. "In big glasses? I need a drink--like yesterday."

It was the other Dean who turned to look at him, who chose to respond, but Sam and his doppelganger exchanged glances anyway. He was pretty sure he was going to get sick of them talking to each other in their heads any minute now.

"Sure they sell beer. I know a place."

Cass puffed up like an angry bird. "Is this really the best time? The Nephilim..."

"Is sleeping," Double-Dean told her. "Right? And you're coming with us. These guys are gonna talk quantum physics for the next six hours anyway--"

"And I need to get drunk," Dean finished for him, "If I'm even vaguely gonna be expected to listen to any of it."

It wasn't his reason at all. A vicious part of Dean wished that he could make Cass stay here, desperate to be as far away from anything that reminded him of Castiel as he could be, but the risk that she might hurt Jack was far too significant. It was why his double was insisting on bringing her along. Yet the pain he felt, the agony of loss that was eating at him, came back like a stab to the gut every time he looked again into her blue eyes. It was going to be impossible to forget what he'd lost when it was right there in front of him, and at this point Dean was even starting to get angry at his other self for not noticing when - as he pulled his hand away from her shoulder and fished out his keys - she looked down at the floor in blatant disappointment.

He was wasting his time. She wanted him, and he wanted her, and he was wasting his goddamn time. How would he feel when she was dead, too?

Dean breathed in, hard, shaking the emotions away before they could glass over his eyes again.

"So what do you drive?"

"Wait and see. You're gonna love it."

Dean doubted that. In fact, he had it in mind to hate his double's car before he even saw it, but that plan evaporated when they stepped out onto the street, a compact umbrella instantly opened over his head by Castiel. Brit Dean's car was beautiful. Stainless steel rims and trim, all of it polished to perfection, stood out against the silky black paint, speckled all over with raindrops as though dipped in diamonds. Twin headlights picked out in silver made it loom impressively despite sitting lower than any of the modern cars around it. Dean recognized the quality--not with the same kind of instinct that he had for American cars, but he whistled none the less.

"1968 Jaguar XJ6. Rear wheel drive, all chrome trim. 0 to 60 in eight and a half seconds."

Faster than the Impala in a drag race. Beside him Castiel seemed impatient. She was so close he could smell the ozone on her--she smelled just like his Cas.

"Engine?"

"Six line, overdrive."

Hah. The Impala had a V-8. That meant more horsepower, more torque, and the turbo was more powerful as well. But it was also another half as big as Double-Dean's car, which meant that the drag coefficient was bigger too. He scrunched his nose up, still feeling stung.

"Trunk?"

"What?"

"The trunk space? The uh...crap, what do you call it? In the back?"

"The boot? You mean 'can I get a body in it'?" His doppelganger shook his head. "If I wanted to drive dead bodies round the country I'd buy American. I don't make a habit of putting corpses in my Sweetheart."

Yup, Dean thought, he was in limey hell.

"Whatever," he said. "Let's just get in. People are looking at us weird."

"We're not driving to the pub," Double-Dean told him, rolling his eyes. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get parking in London?"

"About as hard as it is to get parking in Brooklyn?" There was a reason the Winchesters avoided the big city.

"Besides, if you want to get completely blotto then we shouldn't go too far."

Dean had to admit he had a point. That was the one advantage with motels: you could always pick one that was spitting distance away from a bar. In London you were obviously always spitting distance from somewhere to drink. So Double-Dean set off, and rather than being denied Cass’ umbrella, Dean caught up with his doppelganger in order to stay dry. The angel held up the rear, glare like a laser burning into the back of his neck.

"Is she always like this?" he asked, glancing at his companion.

"What? The angel PMS? Sure."

"Dude." Dean was offended on Castiel's account. Angel PMS? That would be okay if it was his angel they were talking to, but... Actually no, come to think of it it was hurtful and insensitive either way. And sexist. Was he sexist?

"Dude," he hissed. "I mean _protective_."

His doppelganger shrugged, but when Dean looked back around, he noticed that Cass looked startled, as though it were the first time that any Dean had ever noticed. She was certainly looking at him with a lot less hatred now. It was weird. Looking at a female face Dean almost found it easier to pick up on the change in expression.

He looked back at his double and the irritation picked up again. How could he screw up this badly? Couldn't he see that she was completely in love with him?

They stepped into a bar which was disappointingly unremarkable. It looked like any one of the posher places that Dean had drunk at over the years. Smelled the same, too, like spilled beer and furniture polish. While the place was quite blatantly empty so early in the afternoon, a barman still waited for their orders, playing Angry Birds on his phone while he waited for them to shake off their umbrellas and come in from the cold.

Dean made his way toward the bar, and slung himself on one of the stools in front of the bartender, putting on his best British accent.

"Three pints. Cheers mate."

The bartender stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.

"We'll have whatever's on tap," Double-Dean sighed, shaking his head at him. "British people don't talk like that."

"You call your Baby "Sweetheart". You can't just say "British people don't talk like that" when you _actually_ talk like that."

"Uh huh," Double-Dean drawled. "I don't say "Cor blimey!" or "Bloody Hell!" either. You call your car "Baby"?"

Cass, sensing that the conversation was going to turn back to Dean's primary reason for living, rolled her eyes and went to sit at one of the tables. They joined her a minute later, when the bartender had finally put down his phone and drawn their beers. Dean sat down on one side of the booth while Double-Dean, for all the space on his side, practically sat in Cass' lap.

Sure, and they weren't sleeping together.

Dean hid his face in the head of his beer, the froth tickling his nose as he took a sip. He hadn't had beer this good since the last time he and Sammy had hit Oktoberfest. Of course he'd also ended up wearing Lederhosen before the day was out, despite swearing blind he wouldn't, but that was hunting for you: full of surprises.

"So your Castiel is a man?" Double-Dean asked, squinting across the table at him. "That's pretty trippy."

"I'm neither a man nor a woman," Cass said, sipping her beer like a man. Clearly she'd learned it from Sam and Dean. "Angels are without gender."

"So you keep saying. But I believe the evidence in front of me. Breasts equals woman. Some of you have girls names, and some have boys names. I mean, when Raphael was a woman you still called him "he"." 

"I remember that," Dean said, pointing at his double, then at Cass. "You're a dude angel."

Cass, looking uncomfortable with the conversation, lowered her beer to the table. "I am an _angel_ ," she said, looking between both of them. "I choose to identify as masculine, and my compatriots acknowledge that choice and respect it. Is that too difficult for you to understand?"

"You look like a chick to me," Double-Dean said, shaking his head and burying himself in his beer. "Unless you're hiding a dick under that skirt you're always going to be a "she" to me."

Dean sighed. If Sam were here his brother would point out all the million things wrong with making such an insensitive comment. But the double of him didn't even seem to realize he was being a douche, going back to drinking his beer and leaving Cass looking injured in the seat beside him.

"Awesome," Dean said, under his breath. "I'm on a Britaboo crossover episode of Jerry Springer." Any second now Cass and Dean would throw their drinks in each others' faces and start pulling at each others' hair. But hey, at least they'd be communicating.

\-----

Four beers later and Dean had already had enough of both of them.

He was trying to mourn here, more miserable than he'd been ever before in his life, and neither Double-Dean nor Cass was making it any easier. Watching his counterpart earnestly trying to ignore the fact that he was attracted to the angel only made Dean's own failings that much more jarring. They were beating a drumbeat against the back of his skull, an irritation he could barely stand for a minute longer.

Or maybe it was the fact that the afternoon was slipping into evening, and the after work crowd was drifting in, the kind of punters that would have set Dean's teeth on edge no matter where he was. Yuppies and bankers. And yuppie bankers. Not the kind of people Dean generally hung with when he was trying to drink himself senseless.

Nor did Double-Dean or Cass seem to notice the loud grinding of his teeth as conversation and the shuffling of feet and glasses picked up to a steady hum. The occasional burst of laughter or happy chirp from the slot machine in the corner made a vein in the corner of his eye - aggravated by his earlier tears - stab at him as his blood pressure spiraled.

His counterpart nudged Cass in the shoulder and gestured across the bar. A yuppie banker sat nursing a drink, staring at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

"Him."

"I don't understand why you're so intent on cajoling me into participating in casual sex."

Dean lifted his head up from staring into his amber colored lover. The beer didn't protest losing his full attention. He stared at Cass and his double balefully.

"It's normal, Cass. This is London. He's a metrosexual man. You're a metrosexual woman." Double-Dean did something with his hand under the table. Dean guessed that he was probably patting her leg from the injured look on Cass' face.

"Like 'Sex In the City'?"

"Just like 'Sex in the City'," his doppelganger answered, raising an eyebrow at Dean.

"Oh, I...I doubt I'm his type," the angel answered, staring back into her drink.

"Don't be daft. You've got tits, right--I mean. _A lovely smile_. That's all a guy really cares about."

Once again Dean found himself offended by his double's careless sexism. Sure, he probably wasn't wrong about the kind of guys that went chasing tail at bars, or even about himself, but he liked to think that he was more of a gentleman. This Dean Winchester was a _pig._

Then again, maybe it was just because he was speaking to Cass like that. Maybe he was offended particularly on her behalf, because every time Dean dismissed her, she looked like she'd been run through all over again.

No, that was his Cas.

When Dean closed his eyes he saw the image flash on the back of his eyelids, as though the light of Dean’s grace burning out had seared it there permanently. The blade piercing Castiel's chest, the grace that emanated from the wound, the way it began as a glow piercing through the blue of his irises before pouring from his mouth and eyes, screaming silently as his essence burned away. The slightest agonized exhale of surprise; a sound that bounced around his head as though it were an echo-chamber...

"He looks sad."

Dean opened his eyes. Cass wasn't talking to him, she was speaking about the man at the bar. Dean turned to look at him, and then sighed out loud, all the more aggravated. Either Double-Dean was deliberately missing the point, or he was just stupid, because Cass would make up any excuse if it stopped him from making her go over there.

"I'll go with you," Dean said, abruptly. "I want to order another round anyway."

Double-Dean stared at him, obviously not sure if he should be intervening, but he didn't question it as Dean stood up, touching Cass' elbow so that she stood to join him.

They walked across the worn, wine colored carpet to the bar, and Dean waited until Cass slid up into one of the empty stools before stepping in beside her. His hip rest against the bar.

For the first time they really looked at each other. Cass had been avoiding staring for too long all night, and Dean had avoided looking at her, if only because every time he did she reminded him of what he'd lost.

"What is it?" she asked.

Dean tipped his face away, looking down the bar, gathering his courage before he spoke.

"My Castiel died today," he admitted, at last. Emotion swirled even into the first word, so that by the time he was done, Dean felt like he was speaking while trying to keep a mouthful of grapes from falling out. His vision swam.

"I died?" Cass looked not at him but back over to the table, where her own Dean sat forward, scrutinizing them suspiciously.

"Yeah," Dean answered. He looked back down at her. "Right in front of me. I watched him die, and I..."

He lifted his hand and pushed it back over his head, rubbing at the back of his neck as though he could make the emotions less challenging to sort through by digging his fingers in. It was so hard to put words behind them.

"I never told him how I felt about him."

Cass went very still. The bartender walked past them, heading down the bar to take the order of a pair of girls who had just walked in. Dean thought they looked too young to be drinking, until he remembered that the drinking age in Britain was years lower than it was back home.

"What?" Cass finally said, almost under her breath.

"What?" Dean asked, jerking his head back. It was such an unexpected answer.

"What did you feel about him?" Cass clarified.

"Oh." Shifting again, fidgeting, Dean spared a moment to bite the meaty part of his thumb before giving her the answer that was eating at him. He felt fragile, like this was a paradigm shifting moment for him, and yet given the circumstances it changed nothing at all. Cas was still dead, and while this woman might also be Castiel, she wasn't _his_ Castiel at all.

"That I love you. Him. I love him."

Cass seemed to take a while to digest that. While she did, Dean coughed and returned his attention to the bartender to make their order. This time he asked for shots.

"Were you two intimate?" asked Cass, when the bartender turned away.

"No." 

"But you loved him, and you watched him die without telling him so."

Dean folded his arms on the counter in front of him. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks Cass. That's what I said. He told me he loved me when he thought he was gonna die, and I got a reprieve. I had a chance to say I loved him too." He dropped his head into his hands and groaned. "--And I didn't. I screwed up and I never got a chance to make it right. I never... I didn't... We were fighting, and we were supposed to fix it."

"He knows," Cass said softly. She was looking at him intently, he could feel it, but Dean couldn't bare to look at her.

He almost sobbed as he spoke again. "No way. You can't placate me with that crap, Cass. You expect me to believe that you think that _he_ loves you?"

Once again Cass turned around to look at her Dean. Dean gave him a wave to reassure him that they weren't talking about him, but he wasn't entirely sure his double was convinced. It was hard to blame him.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

The shots arrived and Dean pushed one toward Cass, shooting the other one back. Dean gestured for six more, then turned his attention back on his drinking partner.

"What if I could get him to tell you?"

Cass blinked at him, visibly surprised, and said nothing.

"I mean it. Apart from the accent and the crappy taste in cars, we're basically the same person."

"I'm not sure if that's what I want," Cass began. "I'd much rather that, if he did feel that way, he came to the conclusion of his own free will."

"You mean when he watches you die?" Dean asked, sharply. He hadn't meant to put so much snap into the statement, but he realized when he'd said it that he was actually angry. Had Cas been waiting for him to come to that conclusion too? Had they lost any and all time that they might have had together because Cas hadn't had the balls to push him into a confession?

Dean kneaded at his eye again, feeling the prickle pounding there.

"Okay, look, just... Just follow my lead, alright?"

He laid his hand on her shoulder and bent in, so that his mouth was almost by her ear. For a moment he swore she shivered as he spoke. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

When he leant away Dean moved his hand to her thigh, tilting back to face the bartender as he stacked their drinks on a tray. Dean nodded to Cas, who picked up the tray, and when she stood Dean slid in close behind her, practically draping himself across her as they walked back to the booth.

Dean stepped in ahead of Cas, moving along the seat until he was between her and his doppelganger, then urged her to sit close to him, smiling as she ended up practically in his lap. His shoulder bumped against the back of hers, and he passed out the shots with his only free arm, the other wrapped around her.

He grinned lewdly at his counterpart.

Double-Dean didn't look anywhere near as amused. Something troubling had crept into his expression; something Dean recognized because he'd seen it in the mirror himself on some of his worst days.

"I thought Cas was great as a dude, but he makes an even better girl. I mean..." he bent to the left, as though conspiratorially leaning in to whisper a secret to his double. "--the sex has got to be easier, right?"

Double-Dean looked like he'd just been sideswiped by an airbus.

"You..."

But before he could get it out Dean was turning away, smiling at the now rather green looking Castiel. You don't mind sharing, do you?” he said, addressing his double. “I mean, you wanted him to get with that yuppie at the bar, and he can do so much better than that, can't you, Castiel?"

If Cass had looked apprehensive before, the uncertainty ebbed when Dean used the masculine pronoun. Her tongue poked out, wetting her lips, and Dean flushed, recognizing the expression. _Cas_ had done that. Dean would never get to see him do it again.

"We're not fucking," Double-Dean said. "I told you. We're not a thing."

"Nor do I need your permission," Cass said. Her hand suddenly fell on Dean's knee under the table. "I can sleep with anyone I please."

Another hand touched his jaw, and Dean felt his face being guided around, staring down into Cass' blue eyes, so very close and so absolutely, perfectly like his own Castiel's eyes. She bent up, touching their mouths together briefly before sinking into something which - Dean would recollect later - was nothing less than a mesmerizingly sensual kiss.

Their lips molded together. Hers were plump and soft, yet somehow chapped as well, and Dean parted his own easily as she pressed harder up against him, allowing the insistent slither of a warm, wet tongue into his mouth. In a moment he had tangled her tongue with his own, and he sighed into her mouth, surrendering completely to the sweetness of the kiss. He felt like he was floating away on it, felt like he was in paradise for a few lovely, fleeting seconds, and when Cass did pull away he felt stunned and boneless, like he'd been kissing Heaven itself and it had taken everything out of him.

Double-Dean had stopped looking at them. He was gripping his suddenly empty beer glass tightly, staring down into it.

"Sure, whatever," his doppelganger said, but his shoulders were hunched forward.

Dean felt sorry for him, but only a little bit. After a kiss like that he mostly wanted to shake the guy and tell him in no uncertain terms what he was missing.

Cass was still staring at him as though besotted. Her fingers squeezed firmly at his knee, and she laid her head on his shoulder, wearing a dreamy smile.

Double-Dean downed two shots in close succession, then shoved himself away, climbing back to his feet by circling all the way around the table.

"I need a piss. You coming?"

Though it sounded like a request, Dean knew better than to think that was what it was. Double-Dean waited, standing over the table, looming like a storm cloud, and not for a second did he meet Dean's eyes or even look at Cass at all.

"Yeah, sure. I'll be right there."

Though his doppelganger stormed off, Dean still wasn't entirely sure about moving. Cass was clinging to him now, and when he looked back at her, he was almost certain she was going to kiss him even though there was nobody here to make jealous.

"He's never called me that before."

"What? Castiel?"

"No. _He_."

Dean smiled wryly. "You shouldn't take it personally. I know it's easy to - and I know it's not remotely fair - but it's gonna take him a while to change. All you can do is keep reminding him, and be patient."

"I gave up."

"You don't get anything by giving up, Cass. Besides, you learn in this life that if you ever really want something you have to be prepared to fight tooth and nail for it."

Cass chewed over that for a moment, then smiled sadly. "Your Castiel is fortunate to be loved by a man like you."

"Lot of good it did him." Dean said, sadly.

Cass shook her head. "If you really want something you have to be prepared to fight for it." Dean went to stand up, but Cass held onto him. "You could stay," she continued. "I would... I think I would enjoy having sex with you."

"And as much as I am pretty sure I'd enjoy that too," Dean admitted, "I think it's better if I fetch that idiot boyfriend of yours and get his head in the game. Maybe if you're not so screwed up with each other, what happened to us won't happen to you."

He bent in and brushed another light kiss to her lips in parting, before coming back to his feet, urging her to stand so that he could pass her by. "Back in a minute."

Now for the hard bit.

\-----

Dean Winchester was waiting in the bathroom when Dean Winchester got there. And Dean Winchester was furious.

That was good, really. If he wasn't angry, Dean would think that his plan was failing. Just like being shoved back against a urinal hard enough that the porcelain snapped under his weight was all part of the plan. It hurt, and the hurt was glorious.

At last he knew exactly why he was doing this, what its purpose was beyond the possibility of breaking his doppelganger out from being a complete idiot. No. It was about the pain. It was about someone beating his face in for the mistake he'd made of his life. It was even better if the person tearing him a new one was Dean himself.

The punch he'd been hoping for landed a moment later, added itself to layers upon layers of bruises, from the blow of the gun to his face when they'd arrived here, to the Luciferic beatdown he'd gotten just before then. He felt like the bruises went inches deep, like perhaps they'd never fade, and that more than anything was what he wanted. 

Some part of Dean was terrified that when this day was over he'd stop feeling it quite so profoundly. Grief always passed, with sobering guilt pushing into its place that he could keep living while the person he cared about was gone. Already, Dean was angry at his possible future self; a future self who could somehow live without Cas, and had put his mourning behind him. As long as he hurt he couldn't forget, and physical pain always passed far too quickly. His mother, his father, Bobby, Kevin, Charlie, Sam--the grief always passed and the bruises always faded, and Dean kept going on and on. It felt like that meant he'd forgotten, and therefore he'd forget Cas too.

Double-Dean hit him again. This time Dean staggered. He cracked his head on the wall just above his left eye, and as he struggled to make sense of the room his doppelganger leapt on him, shoving him back against the wall again.

His head rang with it, and Dean hissed as the other man got right into his face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Making out with a hot angel. What are _you_ doing?"

Double-Dean shook him again, rattling Dean's head against the wall.

"N-No," Dean pressed. "I mean. You're pissed off, right? Why?"

"What does it matter?"

"Well you're punching me in the face. It matters to me."

Finally the grip on his collar began to loosen, and Dean grimaced. Somehow the pain was worse when the threat of it wasn't ongoing, as though now he had time to process it, no more adrenaline kicking through him to keep him fighting. His head started to throb.

"I don't know whether you noticed this, but you've got my face."

"And?"

"And you're kissing Cass. With my mouth." An aggravated pause. "You're going to fuck everything up."

"Fuck what up?" Dean asked, his voice going - if anything - a point harder. "You two haven't got anything to fuck up. You're literally not even fucking. She wants you. _You_. And you're sitting there trying to get her to take some stranger to bed. Well I'm the next best thing, right?"

Double-Dean punched him again. "What part of this aren't you getting? You're not sleeping with her."

"Because you're gonna sleep with her?"

"No. Because you're--" Double-Dean bit his tongue, contemplating how to phrase it. "Because it's a bad fucking idea, that's why. It's a bad idea. Look at you. You're me, right? So you've had all sorts of bad relationships. Lisa?"

Dean's eyes flicked up. It was all he had to say, really.

"Our lives are shitty enough as it is. You know how much it hurt to lose Lisa and she's still out there. Cass? I can't imagine losing Cass--being in love with her, and losing her. So I don't. I can't."

Now it was Dean's turn to feel like he wanted to punch his alternate right between the eyes.

"You stupid bastard. You're going to lose her anyway." The ferocity in his voice carried him through. "You're going to lose her without her even knowing how you feel. Both of you--you're both going through life lonely and unfulfilled. And why? Because you're afraid? If Cas had known I loved him too, maybe he wouldn't have done what he did. Maybe the thought of losing me, of leaving me..."

His doppelganger's expression had faltered as he spoke, and Dean was left trying to work out what he'd said in the heat of the moment. Finally though, it occurred to him that he had only mentioned Cas being dead to - well - to Cass. Double-Dean didn't know.

"I knew it was something. Yank or not... You lost Cass--I mean, Castiel?"

Dean didn't want to talk about it. But this was himself. If anyone in the universe was going to understand him, it would be the man who'd just hit him in the face. "Today. _Today._ Fucking ten minutes before Jack opened that portal and brought us here."

"How?"

The image flashed in front of his eyes,again; the dark reflection of the sky on the lake, the slight hint of accomplished pride in Castiel's expression before it all went south. He must have considered his prey vanquished. How wrong he had been.

"Lucifer," Dean said, suddenly tired, and far less interested in booze than before. "Right in front of me."

There was silence between them then, a sort of shared mourning, at least until Double-Dean spoke again and ruined it all.

"Sleeping with Cass isn't going to make you feel better."

That was bullshit, Dean thought. It could. Sex was healing like that. But it wasn't the point either.

"That's not why I kissed her. You're an idiot, you know that? A total idiot. You're supposed to get jealous. And here you are: getting jealous."

"I'm not--"

Dean shook his head. "Shut up. You're not gonna fool me with that crap. I'm you, remember? Besides, you don't punch a guy in the face just cause your best-friend-totally-platonic locks lips with him for half a second."

"I'm not interested."

"I didn't think I was interested either. I told myself I wasn't. Thought I was protecting myself, same as you. But you're just wasting what time you've got. This is it. She dies, or you die, and it's over. Nobody wins."

"So that's your answer? Live while you're young?"

"My Cas is _dead_ ," Dean hissed, and now he shoved away, pushed himself up and made sure his double moved clear out the way. "Dead. You get that? Dead. _Gone._ I'm never going to see him again. I'm never going to get even a minute. I'm never going to get to kiss him. Yours is in the other room. She's waiting for you, and she _wants_ you--"

He wasn't getting through. He knew he wasn't. Hell, if it were him - which it was - the risk would still be far too great, even with it right in his face like this. There was risk of getting hurt, and Dean knew hurt better than most. Exposing himself even to the potential of it just wasn't going to happen.

He lost everyone he'd ever loved. So why even bother putting love on the table? Easier to sleep his way through half the female population of the United States--or in this case, Britain. Hell, Britain was smaller, so maybe his counterpart had bedded the whole lot already. Casual carefree sex, inconsiderate of emotion or long lasting sentiment; what better way to block the world out?.

“Why do I even bother?” he asked tiredly. “I told her I was gonna get your head in the game, but I can’t do that. I know myself too well; know you’re gonna let the best thing that could ever have happened to you pass you by cause you’re too much of a coward.”

For once his doppelganger stayed quiet. Dean just had to hope some part of his gambit paid off.

“Thing you don’t seem to get is how little there is to lose. You can both look after yourselves in a fight. There’s nothing out there in your life that’s gonna derail hers. And she’s never gonna love anyone else the way she loves you.”

There was nothing more to say. They stood in silence for a while, until at last they both rubbed their right eyebrow at the same time.

“You need to get drunk,” Double-Dean told him. He was sidestepping the topic, sure, but Dean thought he’d probably got through to him. Even a little bit would be fine. But Dean disagreed outright with his suggestion: he was as drunk as he could stand being, and the London crowd had driven him to distraction.

“I do. But we need to be getting back. I’m pretty sure Sammy’s list of people he’s allowed to go gay for has his own name right on top of it.”

“Thanks for that mental image.”

Double-Dean hesitated, looking at the bathroom door. “You first?”

Rolling his eyes, Dean strode ahead, leading the way back into the bar. Cass was still sitting alone, and she’d drunk all of the shots on the table while they’d been gone. She looked between them, uncertain what to do, and the concern didn’t abate even when Double-Dean touched her shoulder.

“Am I to assume you’ve agreed that we shouldn’t have sex?” she asked, worriedly.

“Something like that,” Dean answered, and at her disappointed look he squeezed her opposite shoulder. “We should get back to the Nephillim though.”

“Yes, well… I suppose Bill and Ben may need our help when he wakes up.”

“Bill and Ben?”

“The Flowerpot Men? Never mind.” Double-Dean gave him the kind of look that Dean thought implied he was a heathen, then looked back at Cass. “C’mon.”

As they left, Cass glanced across at Dean surreptitiously, only this time instead of obvious concern that her relationship with her Dean was about to implode, she wore a very different expression. It was clear that she had no idea who these “Flowerpot Men” were either.

\-----

Dean cocked his head. Maybe this wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen, but it was somewhere up there. 

There were two Sams sharing one single bed, sat almost shoulder to shoulder, both with laptops open. Dean knew for sure that they hadn’t brought Sam’s laptop with them, so he assumed the computer Sam was using was Double-Dean’s. It didn’t make the scene any less bizarre. On the other bed the son of Satan was snoozing peacefully, a blissfully unmurderous look on his face.

When they came into the room, both Sams looked up. Cass broke away, crossing over to the bed and crouching down beside Jack, studying him with the usual Castiel brand of intensity.

Double-Dean beat him to the punch on the joke, but only cause Dean was already distracted.

“I must have drunk too much. I’m seeing double.”

“That the best you got?” Dean countered, rolling his eyes.

“You do better, then.”

Dean rolled his eyes and ignored him, instead focusing on his two brothers. “So. You two bookworms find anything, or did you just spend the whole time checking each other out?”

Sooner or later he was going to get tired of Sam and Double-Sam rolling their eyes in unison. They tried to speak at the same time, too, and one managed to creep an ‘after you’ gesture in just before the other, saving Dean the trouble of getting mad and picking one to speak first.

“There isn’t really a great deal of useful lore written on Nephilim. I mean, we covered it all long before we came here, and none of it’s different in this universe. They’re supposed to be giant, which I suppose if Cas is the size of the Chrysler building that sort of makes sense, but since the angels like to kill them off before they really stretch their legs, there’s a lack of any really useful data.”

Once Sam had finished speaking, Dean looked at the British version, eyes narrowing minutely. “You got anything to add?”

“Only that traveling between alternate universes is ridiculously dangerous. The more holes you tear in the fabric of reality…”

Dean waved his hand. “Angels do it all the time, right? Spare me the lecture, Sammy.”

“Dean,” Sam said, his voice hard. “You should pay attention to this. It’s like global warming. The more you pretend that your small contribution isn’t doing any harm, the more people in the world will carry on thinking exactly the same thing. We’re messing with something we barely understand--”

“To get Mom back,” Dean snapped. “This was your plan, Sam. Cas or Mom. You picked Mom. So we are _doing this._ No matter how much of a goddamn _carbon footprint_ we leave behind. I don’t want to hear it.”

Unfortunately for Dean, his outburst woke the Nephilim.

Cass stood back up so quickly she almost fell over, because as Jack’s eyes had opened, they glowed with that same creepy red power that had shone in Castiel’s when he’d gone all Robocop on them. The light quickly faded, and the odd smirk - somewhat softened - returned in place of it. He seemed to be learning to reflect back the expressions of the people around him, little by little, but for Dean it was taking longer than he’d have liked. Every time Jack looked at him the smirk reminded Dean of who Jack’s father was.

His bio-dad, at least.

And that reminded him of Castiel.

"Castiel?"

Jack was looking across at the angel cautiously, and he smiled, sitting up the rest of the way to look at her. It occurred to Dean at once that Jack had never met his protector, at least not directly. He kept his distance.

"You know me?"

"Yes. You were like a father to me. I haven't been able to thank you for that, for being the vessel of my protection when I was at my most vulnerable."

Dean hitched in a sharp breath. He noticed that Sam did too: they were both remembering that moment in the playground, the betrayal when Cas had put them both to sleep with a touch.

Jack looked over at him, and Dean shivered.

"Get out of my head. I mean it, kid. You're half human, so around me you're gonna focus on the human part. First rule: no mind reading."

"Ever?"

Dean squinted and tried to think of a situation where mind reading could be useful. He shrugged rather than giving a definitive answer.

"You know that I only did what was necessary," Jack said.

Dean didn't answer that either.

"Jack," Sam said. "I don't think we're quite where you meant to bring us. This isn't the world your door went to. It's--"

"British," Dean finished.

Double-Dean scowled at him like he was using some kind of slur. He sort of was.

"You said we could try again," Sam told him.

"Soon," Jack agreed. "Do you have anything to eat?"

Doppelganger Sam perked up at once. "Of course. You're half human, you've got to eat just like the rest of us."

Cass scowled at him.

"Like most of the rest of us," Double-Sam corrected. "I'll hit Tesco."

Dean had no idea what a Tesco was. Probably some health food store, knowing Sam. He caught his Other Brother's arm as he tried to cross to the door. "Hey, I'm coming with you. Kid needs sugar and red meat."

"Damn right," Double-Dean agreed. He watched them approvingly until the door closed behind them. Dean had the distinct feeling that his motivation was more to put as much space between Dean and Cass as he possibly could.

\-----

“Sam told me what the other alternate universe was like,” Double-Sam said. “Demons and angels at war, the whole world ravaged. It sounded like hell on earth.”

Dean gave his head the slightest shake. “Nah. Hell was still worse. This was more like Hell’s holiday camp: go kayaking in a lake of fire, pull the wings off an angel, kick a human head around the park--you get the picture.”

Sam gave that awkward half laugh he did when he was nervous. British or not, it made Dean feel comfortable hearing it. It was almost possible to forget that this wasn’t his brother at all.

Especially when Double-Sam was tossing a bag of lettuce into the shopping cart, which he called a “trolley” for some reason.

“You and your rabbit food.”

“You’re not so different to him either, you know,” Sam told him thoughtfully.

“That’s the problem. He’s an ass.”

“Yeah, he’s a bit of an arse. But he’s my brother.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Don’t give me the line, Sam. He’s an ass either way. The way he treats Cass…”

That shut Sam up. When Dean looked back, his brother’s doppelganger was looking straight at him wearing a look of utter confusion.

“What?”

“What about the way he treats Cass?” Sam pressed.

“You know? Like she’s not there. Like he’s not interested.”

“But you are?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean answered, bitterly. “My Castiel is dead. I missed my chance.”

“I know,” Sam said, and his voice was a little softer now, trying for comforting as well as pragmatic. “I heard about that. I’m sorry. But is he… Is my Dean interested? I mean I think he is, but then he does the things he does--”

Dean stared at him, thinking of his own version of Sam sharing these thoughts, knowing about him and Cas and saying nothing about it. No, not nothing. Sam had tried to talk to him about it here and there, but it just hadn’t ever got through to Dean, defensive as he was in every possible way. He made an irritated noise and tipped his face down, frowning at the chilled food. Tiny little pies - pork and apple, supposedly - drew his attention, and he picked up a packet to study it, but it was mostly to give his hands something to do. He hated this conversation.

“Your brother’s an idiot,” he told Sam. “Same as I am. A fucking idiot.”

“Cass is in love with him,” Sam agreed, switching the packet of pies in Dean’s hand with one large pie that said “Melton Mowbray” front and center. It was more expensive than the others. “If you’re gonna have one British pie ever, then this is the one you want.”

Dean put the pie in the cart.

“Cass loves him,” Dean agreed. “And she’s said so, right? But he has no idea she means it the way she means it, or pretends he doesn’t. I kissed her, you know.”

Sam looked like he’d been shot. “ _You kissed her_?”

“I was trying to make him jealous. It worked.”

“Did he--?”

“Did he hell, Sammy.” Dean grimaced. “I said he’s a fucking idiot, didn’t I? You’re gonna have to keep the pressure on when I’m gone, kick his ass into gear.”

“I guess.”

They’d reached the self-service checkout line. Sam scanned the items through himself, then started feeding coins into the machine. From several rows away a cashier with his own customers watched them hawkishly.

“I mean it,” Dean added. “This is your fault as much as it is his. You let him get away with it. All of it.”

Fairly admonished, Sam didn’t speak again until they were on the way back to their room.

“Did you love him?”

Dean gave him a look.

“Sorry,” Sam said, and he shook his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Sorry.”

Dean scowled at his feet as they climbed the last few stairs.

Inside, Cass was sitting quietly talking to Jack. Sam - his Sam - and Double-Sam’s Dean had left them to it, and were chatting to each other in the other bedroom. They regrouped in the bedroom, Dean sitting down with his brother, and catching the briefest longing look from Cass in the process.

“How’s it going?”

“Their story almost mirrors ours completely, apart from the Brit thing. He listens to the same music you do. The other Sam--he’s just like me. They fought Lucifer. Released the Darkness, reunited her with God. Everything. But their Amara didn’t leave them a “gift”.”

“Yeah, I figured. It’s weird, huh?” Dean huffed and perched on the edge of the bed, his back to Cass and Jack. He was feeling restless. “But that’s not what I meant. How’s Jack feeling? The sooner we can get out of here the better.”

“That bad?”

“It’s the accents, Sammy. I can’t take any more limey accents.”

He was only half joking. After what they’d been through at the hands of the British Men of Letters, Dean wasn’t far off wanting to never hear a British accent ever again. He’d once found it cute, especially British women, but now it was just another thing the hunting life had ruined for him.

“I want to get back too,” Sam agreed, knowing what Dean really meant. “I want to find mom and go home.”

Conversation, once the others returned, was had over the strangest food Dean had ever had. The pie wasn’t remotely like pie. The pastry was all wrong, and the meat inside was hard, bland and cold. It wasn’t pie. He ate his piece because there was only rabbit food available otherwise, but he hated it the whole time. 

His double was thrilled with the treat. “Great pie, Sammy!”

Double-Sam tutted and popped another cherry tomato in his mouth.

Who knew when they would get food again? If any of the other universes was as bad as the first one they’d visited, they might have to go without for quite some time. Dean still remembered the rations he’d eaten in that other future, visiting the survivor camp from which his original doppelganger had been planning the war against Lucifer. They’d been able to get Cas great dope, but fresh bread was a novelty.

By the time they’d finished eating Jack didn’t look anywhere near as pasty and weak as he had before. There was a pinkness to his cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Dean hoped the next jump - that was what he was calling it now - didn’t take as much out of him as this one, if only because the idea of having to protect a sleeping Nephilim every moment seemed like hard work.

But as much as he was in a hurry to move on, it was full of frightening potential. Anything could be waiting for them behind the next door. A world without magic, sure, or a world that was at intergalactic war. A world where everyone was in Claymation, knitted, or drawn like Scooby-Doo. Wasn’t that how this went?

He wanted to get out of here, but at least this place was normal.

Now it was Sam, rather than Jack, who read his mind.

“You want to maybe nap here? Get going in the morning?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t look at their doppelgangers, but his mood was thus: _do you trust other us?_

Sam’s expression replied that he did not. Then he shrugged and poked into his dinner again.

“You guys can sleep,” Double-Dean said. “We can watch the fort.”

“Nah,” Dean replied. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, fighting Lucifer and everything has tuckered me out, but last time we took our eyes off Cas, he went running off with Baby _and_ baby Jack.”

“So you don’t trust me?” Cass asked. Her voice was like chiseled ice.

Thankfully the Nephilim broke the uncomfortable silence that fell between the five of them. 

“I can look after myself,” Jack announced. “Nobody is going to take me anywhere that I do not wish to go.”

Sam sat forward. “You know that’s a good point. Jack doesn’t need a full on babysitter any more.”

“So you guys can nap without worrying we’re gonna run off with your ride home. I’ll even pretend I’m not offended.” Double-Dean didn’t look offended, Dean thought. He looked like he understood Dean’s consternation just fine, stolen car and everything.

“We wouldn’t trust us either,” Double-Sam said, smiling encouragingly. “But we didn’t exactly come here planning to fight Lucifer’s son.”

Double-Dean gave Jack an appraising look, then shrugged. “You guys still have it way worse than us. We’ll keep look out. But if we ever end up in your universe then you owe us, got it?”

They shared another round of warm beer, and Sam and Dean turned in, top and tail on the creaky queen sized bed.

 

\-----

 

The last whisper of red magic worked its way across Castiel’s skin, a flame of incredible power preserved in a body that would have been fragile without it. It was just enough. 

Just enough.

With a flutter, blue eyes opened to blackest midnight. The wind had blown blossom petals onto the Impala, and they were the first thing thing that Cas saw, pink turning to sodden brown, stuck in place against the glossy black hood of Dean’s pride and joy.

He couldn’t have been here for more than a few days. There was still some blossom in the trees above the car, and no fallen leaves to suggest that the year had come and gone while he sat here--while Castiel had been in paradise, waiting.

The car - just like the house in his dream - smelled like Dean, like warmth and leather and love unspoken. Cas didn’t trust himself to move straight away for risk of disturbing the scene that Dean had left behind. Cas was still covered with his own blood. He ached horribly, his entire body sore from whatever process had awoken it.

He could accept being sore if it meant that he was no longer dead.

He had to move sooner or later, had to drag himself up out of the car, even if it meant he had to lean against it once he was upright. There was no doubt that Dean had put him in the car, which meant that Lucifer hadn’t killed him at the very least.

It also presumably meant that Dean hadn’t had time to set a fire and burn his earthly body. That was likely for the best, considering. Burning might have been one step too many.

He was alive, and that was what mattered. Alive meant that he could find out what had happened to Sam and Dean--and to Jack, of course.

Making sure both doors of the Impala were unlocked, Castiel pocketed the spare key from under the passenger seat just in case, and set his sights on the house instead. He had hardly opened the door when the smell hit him, so potent that it made his eyes water.

Death.

He knew what he would find before he found it. Kelly Kline lay inert where she had brought life into the world. Someone had closed her eyes, but the lids had sunken in, and her lips had begun to peel gruesomely away from her teeth, cheeks hollowing out. Cas put one hand across his face, crushing his nose underneath his thumb, the smell overwhelming him anyway. It wasn’t typical for angels to be squeamish, but he felt…

He felt _nauseous._

The next thing he knew, Cas was kneeling in the dirt outside the house vomitting yellow bile. His eyes stung and his throat and stomach were raw with it, his heart racing so fast that it was almost painful.

In horror and confusion he stared down at the mess he’d made. Angels didn’t get sick. They certainly didn’t throw up--not unless they were puking black goo, anyway. No, this was very, very different. His eyes and nose were streaming, and staring into his own vomit only made Castiel’s stomach feel more uneasy. He took himself away from it, scrubbing at his raw face with both hands while he crossed to the lake, and kneeling beside it to splash cold water on his face.

This couldn’t be happening. He’d been doolah to a Nephilim, stabbed Lucifer in the heart, been killed by him in turn, and risen from the dead. But this? This couldn’t be happening to him. He couldn’t do this again.

He couldn’t be human again.

 

\-----

 

It was hours later, almost morning, when Dean opened his eyes to the soft sound of talking in the corridor outside. His head hurt from drinking. The dense pie crust and leafy salad hadn’t done much to soak up any of the alcohol he’d drowned himself in. For a moment he forgot entirely where he was, and the only familiar things were Sam’s left and right foot, each stuck directly in his face.

His gun was right under the makeshift pillow tucked beneath him. By the time he’d wrapped his hand around the butt of the pistol Dean had remembered everything. London, kissing Cass, the Nephilim, Lucifer…

Castiel.

The soft voices in the corridor had British accents, and Dean identified the speaker as his own doppelganger.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I don’t know. I’ve had a bug up my ass about it for such a long time, and you didn’t deserve any of it.”

Dean grinned into his fist, and carefully inched his way out of bed; a task made far harder by the way the damn thing creaked. He managed to get himself upright, edging across the darkened room.

“I didn’t know what I’d done wrong,” Cass said. Her voice was incredibly soft, as though if she spoke too loudly she might break this fragile new reality she’d come upon. “No, that isn’t true. I have done a great many things wrong. I didn’t know which it was that had driven you from me, and I would have done anything to change it. Anything..”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Double-Dean told her. “You didn’t, Cass. I was the one who was screwed up.”

“Dean--”

There was silence, or something close to it, and Dean crept right up to the door, peeking through the gap. Sure enough, visible in the streetlight and moonlight that came in through the hallway window, Cass and Dean were locked in a loving embrace. Their kiss was slow and tender, affectionate and exploratory.

And then the closet door flung open, and golden light exploded into the corridor. It flashed brighter and brighter, then burst into a white gash that ripped through reality itself. Out of the gash sprang a figure, a man carrying an elongated silver scimitar, his face concealed by black cloth, a many layered shroud of tan fabric tumbling about him. The man sprinted down the corridor, feet barely touching the ground. He was on Dean’s doppelganger before he’d even really turned around, blade flashing.

Dean didn’t wait to see what would happen. He retreated back into the bedroom and rushed to wake Sam.

“Fucking ninja assassin,” he told him. “Get up. _Get up._ ”

Sam didn’t need telling twice. Without a thought to being drowsy Sam was instantly on his feet, ready with his own glock. When the ninja tried to enter the room, sword dripping blood, the two of them emptied half a dozen rounds into the door. Dean could have sworn at least one shot hit the ninja before he flung himself back behind the wall.

“Holy shit,” Sam said, his voice muted to Dean’s ears, with the shots still ringing loud in them. “What the hell is that?”

“I told you, man. Ninja.”

Another round of gunshots rang out down the hall, and without saying a word Sam and Dean moved in formation to the door. Dean swung out, and spotting the ninja in the corridor he fired at him again. Whoever he was, he retreated back the way he came. When he leapt through the light, both he and it disappeared completely.

Behind him, Cass was crouched over a wounded Dean, hand pressed against the knife wound on his chest. A moment later Double-Dean breathed in sharply, eyes flying wide open. In turn, Dean felt his own racing heart begin to pull back from caffeine heart attack levels of adrenaline.

“Jack?” he called out.

Double-Sam replied for him, shouting from the next room. “We’re both fine! What was that?”

“Ninja!” Dean shouted back to him.

Jack emerged from the room first, looking off the way the ninja had come and gone. “He was here for me.”

“For you?” Dean asked, uncertainly.

“To kill me. I don’t know why, only that he was filled with the importance of his mission.”

Dean shook his head, dazed. This was turning into one screwed up day. Lady angels, Nephilim, and now ninjas from alternate universes? Was this really his life?

“We shouldn’t stay here any longer,” Jack said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Are you good, though? Can you do this?”

“It will be easier this time,” Jack reassured him. “Or it should be. I’m not completely sure.”

“Then we’ll find out,” Sam said. “That could have gone way worse. We can’t stick around and find out what happens when that guy regroups.”

Dean agreed, but he didn’t say anything. His doppelganger was being helped up by Cass now, her arm pressed at the small of his back, her chin a constant two inches from Double-Dean’s. The last thing he wanted was to stick around and risk splitting these two up now that they’d found each other. If the ninja was after them, after Jack, then they should make it harder for him to find them.

Double-Sam looked back and forth. “So you’re going. Now? Hang on--” He vanished back into the room he’d come from, and returned a moment later with a black duffel bag.

“It’s a survival kit. Food, sewing kit, piece of rope, a change of clothes…” Double-Sam looked at Sam pointedly. “My laptop’s in there.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah I did. Besides I’ve been wanting to upgrade, this just gives me a good excuse.”

“Come on, nerds,” Dean admonished. “Wheels up, let’s get out of here.”

They arranged themselves in front of the closet, Jack up front, and Sam and Dean flanking him. Dean spared the briefest glance behind him, smiling at what he saw. Even with blood drying down the front of his sweater-vest, Double-Dean was paying much more attention to the angel at his side, his arm wrapped around her back protectively. Cass, to her credit, was able to pull her gaze away from his for just long enough to see them off. Dean could have sworn he saw her mouth “thank you” before he turned and followed Sam and Jack into uncertain oblivion.

\-----

" _Traversed the planet when heaven sent me. I saw the kings who rule them all_  
Still by the firelight and purple moonlight. I hear the rested rivers call  
And the wind is crying, from a love that won't grow cold  
My lover, she is lying, on the dark side of the globe."


End file.
